Ex-Giant Brown: I abused my wife
Former Giants kicker Josh Brown is using the attention of Super Bowl week to begin his image rehab and comeback attempt, going on television to debate the semantics of abusing his wife and to complain he has lost “everything.”
“The world now thinks that I beat my wife. I never hit her, never once,” Brown told ABC in an interview set to air Thursday morning on “Good Morning America.”
But the NFL exile answers another question by admitting he “physically abused” his ex-wife, Molly.
“I mean I had put my hands on her. I kicked the chair. I held her down. The holding down was the worst moment in our marriage,” Brown said.
“I never hit her. I never slapped her. I never choked her. I never did those types of things.”
In journal entries, counseling exercises and court documents that were uncovered in October, Brown admitted to a pattern of “physically, emotionally and verbally” abusing Molly Brown throughout their marriage.
Brown was cut by the Giants on Oct. 25, after several days of indecision by the franchise’s leaders. That day, the 37-year-old, 14-season NFL veteran tried to draw the same fine line: “It is important to share that I never struck my wife, and never would.”
Brown, who is not attached to a team, said he wants back in the NFL. He remains under investigation by the league, commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday in Houston, site of Super Bowl LI. Brown purports to be “fully accountable.”
“Domestic violence is not just physical abuse. We’re talking intimidation and threats, the attempt to control, body language,” Brown told ABC. “An abuser is going to abuse to a certain degree to acquire some kind of a reaction.”
“Good Morning America” counts Giants great Michael Strahan as a host.